There is No Right Way

We are trained from an early age to look for the way.

Corporate Leader Juggling what is possible.

The way to win.

The way to lead.

The way to build a career, a company, or a life.

But leadership doesn’t operate in absolutes. There is no The Way. There is only A Way.

I was reminded of this in a workshop exercise recently. Two groups, a circle of four participants, six tennis balls for each circle, and a few simple rules:

1. Each person can hold only one ball at a time.

2. All six balls must be in motion to win.

No one had done it before. Truthfully, I didn’t even know if it was possible. I invented the challenge thirty minutes earlier as I drove to the workshop. But they didn’t know that.

Within minutes of starting, frustration set in.

Some participants grew impatient. Others went quiet.

Some stopped working. Others got louder.

A few looked to the other team for clues — assuming someone, somewhere, must know the answer.

When time ran out, I asked, “What was that experience like?”

Most said they were frustrated not knowing how to succeed.

Some admitted they felt dumb for not figuring it out.

Others assumed I was holding back the “real” solution.

But there wasn’t one. At least not one I knew of.

Their minds — like most of ours — wanted to believe there was a secret formula, a prescribed path to success. When they couldn’t find it, doubt crept in. Limiting thoughts took root.

Our brains trick us into thinking there must be a right way to do something. When we can’t find it, we make that failure mean something about us: I’m dumb. I’m not enough. I don’t have talent.

Movement stops. Curiosity dies.

We shift from What might I be capable of? to I am not capable.

That’s the trap — believing failure is fatal.

We’ve all been there. We’ve chased certainty. We’ve believed there must be a hidden strategy, a five-step model, a framework that makes it all click.

But growth isn’t about knowing the way. It’s about creating a way.

It’s about standing in uncertainty, testing ideas, failing, adjusting, and learning to trust that progress doesn’t come from perfection — it comes from persistence.

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

That’s the paradox of leadership — the rich dichotomy. There is no right way, yet a way to discover what you’re capable of is to iterate. When failure becomes formative it means

you get to try again.

So the next time you’re searching for the way… pause.

Invent it.

Try it.

Miss.

Adjust.

And keep the balls in motion.

Because the way doesn’t exist until you create it.